Credit card fraud and theft detection are becoming increasingly more important due in part to the proliferation of credit card use online resulting in personal credit card information becoming easier to obtain for illegal or unauthorized purposes. Often, attempts to detect and deter unauthorized credit card use results in the credit card being automatically blocked when unusual or otherwise suspect spending or charges occurs. Often, the credit card holder must then contact the credit card company to remove the block if the transactions are in fact authorized. This is inconvenient for the credit card holder as they may not know their card is being blocked until they try to make another valid transaction, and then must spend time trying to contact the credit card company to remove the block on their card (often while waiting to make the valid transaction).
Also, the credit card company may allow suspect transactions to occur and then follow up later with a phone call to the credit card holder to validate the transactions. However, if the transactions were in fact fraudulent, then the credit card company would have lost the opportunity to avoid the fraudulent transactions and perhaps stop the perpetrator in the act.
Thus, needed are processes and a system that addresses the shortcomings of the prior art.